54G – Getting There…
May 17th, 2009I wanted to provide an update for my 54G native fish and plant aquarium. I have, however, broken my own rules for this aquarium to help it mature a little bit. I added some non-native floating plants to the surface temporarily, to help soak up some of the excess nitrate from the aquasoil. In doing so, the algae on the hairgrass and the rest of the plants is almost entirely gone. As you can see, that’s not quite the case for the rocks though.
The rocks are completely covered in black brush algae, but I have increased the CO2 output and have refined my dosing routine, so I’m confident that it’s just a matter of time before I’m able to get rid of it. I will likely end up manually scrubbing the rocks at the next water change, and then let my adjustments do the rest.
The fish are all doing very well, kept happy with a healthy diet of blackworms, and a few extra pellets when they’ll accept them. I still haven’t seen any spawning behavior, but I don’t really expect to see much of that since I didn’t chill these fish over the winter. They’re probably wondering why their summer has lasted 9 months!
All in all, I’m very pleased with the direction of this tank. I will soon be able to collect some more native plants to fill out the background. After that, I’ll focus a little bit more of the aquascape itself. Comments welcome!
May 18th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
Looking good! I wonder if there’s any native inverts that would munch on the BBA? Probably nothing that wouldn’t get eaten themselves by the Blue-spots or killies, I guess … either that, or maybe a crawdad that would tear up the whole ‘scape!
What species of floating plant are you using to suck up the excess nutrients – water lettuce? I can’t quite tell from the pics … but, then, I am past-due for an eye exam! 😉
May 18th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
Thanks Mark. Grass shrimp are native, which are essentially a species like your ghost shrimp feeders. I’ve tried putting a 100 of them in this tank, and as you surmised, the blue-spots and killfish ate quite well for a few days. 🙂
Right now, I have a mixture of Red Root Floater (Phyllanthus fluitans) and Frogbite on the surface. I’ll likely just throw them out in the pond once I’m done with them here.
May 18th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
That’s some great progress you’ve got there. The algae sort of accentuates the overall native set-up part.